


the thing about regret

by rrosebudd



Series: Winnie Odelle: Courier Six [2]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: a bit of backstory for my courier, but just to be sure I tagged it as such, not very graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 16:56:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13127784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rrosebudd/pseuds/rrosebudd
Summary: Winnie can’t stop having nightmares, and Arcade is sick of hearing her scream in the middle of the night. Apparently, she’s done some shitty things that she can’t let go of.





	the thing about regret

_  
It was dark. But that's all she could see. Blackness stretched to every point of her vision. It clouded her eyes._

_But it didn't matter, for it was not the sense she needed. She felt, instead. She smelled. She heard._

_In her hands, the cool metal of a stolen 10mm pistol pressed firmly to the skin of her fingers and palms. It normally felt natural to be there, but now it did not._

_The scent of iron and smoke filled her nose, sinking into her nostrils and into her brain as her hands loosened their grip on the gun._

_With her ears ringing from a gunshot that had sounded not long ago, she heard a body fall to the floor. The sound of flesh and bone hitting a wooden floor swam through the air._

_The gun fell from her hands. More sounds. Metal clanking against wood. People from other rooms suddenly awaking and shuffling about. Shouts and calls of worry, of curiosity._

_Footsteps hit the wooden stairs, thunderous sounds coming from the story above her. She sank to her knees, the blackness of her vision restoring quickly. She gazed down at the body of the man she had shot, and saw the many open bullet wounds pouring blood out of his chest. Her hands cupped his face and pulled his dead eyes to look at her._

_She wailed, hearing footsteps grow louder behind her. What had she done? How could she have done this? How could she have done this?_  
________

Winnie woke up with an anguished scream. She scrambled to sit upright, clutching her short hair in her hands, forming tight white-knuckled fists. She clamped her eyes shut, squeezing her face as to not have to see anything. 

She screamed again through gritted teeth, a sort of pain filling her chest. Guilt. Anger. Fury. 

Winnie's fists removed themselves from her hair and she instead slammed them onto the bed on which she lay. Her small hands pounded the mattress in rage, repeated guttural yells of anger following each hit. 

Her punches slowed as she tired herself out, the shouts turning into grunts and whimpers instead. Winnie's breathing became less rapid and forced, and she worked to compose herself, keeping her lungs from contracting wildly. 

She brought her hands back up to her head, covering her face as she felt tears well up in her eyes and push their way through her closed eyelids and onto the skin of her palms. 

It took another moment until her breathing slowed back down. Winnie took her hands from her face and placed them back on the bed, exhaling shakily. 

"I know it's not my business-" 

Winnie's head snapped to the side in surprise with a short gasp, suddenly remembering that she was not, as she normally is, alone.

"...but seeing as how you've been talking in your sleep since I started traveling with you, I figured this is something we should discuss."   
Arcade Gannon was sitting on the edge of his bed, one hand on his knee and the other pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. 

Winnie looked at him with wide eyes, piecing together what he must have just witnessed. She turned to look to Arcade's right, where Rex sat hesitantly, his tongue out and his head tilted, having been woken up by Winnie's sleep fit as well. 

She swallowed before speaking. "A-arcade, I, uh..." she cleared her throat anxiously, wiping the tears from her eyes, "I didn't realize you were, like, here… I, well, I…" 

"Forgot I was your companion?" He looked at her with one eyebrow raised. "That's alright, happens all the time." 

She shook her head quickly. "No, no, I mean-"   
"But seriously, this has been going on for too long for me to not say something." He folded his arms across his doctor's coat expectantly. 

Rex walked toward Winnie slowly and jumped onto her bed, walking around in a circle before curling himself up by her feet. She scratched his ears with a small, tearful smile, practically ignoring Arcade.

He sighed, "And so, if you don't mind my asking," Arcade looked at his companion cryptically, "what exactly are you reliving every night?" 

Winnie sighed, brushing her hair out of her face without making eye contact with the man across the room. She kept her other hand on the back of Rex's head, as he slowly fell back asleep. "Look, I really don't wanna get into it-"

"Oh, I know." He nodded less with understanding and more with apathetic acknowledgement. "Believe me, if there's anyone who hates delving into their past, it's me. But this something else, Winnie." Arcade shook his head.

He continued, “I can't keep waking up with my pistol drawn the second you start screaming. Rex bolts up and runs around for a good half hour to make sure there's no danger. Whatever it is must be pretty bad, and we really can't keep having this kind of paranoia. So I suggest you spill." He finished his speech by crossing his arms again and leaning forward, his expression steely and unconcerned. 

Winnie looked at him with creased eyebrows, attempting to read him. It never worked. "We really have to do this now? It's a long story." 

Arcade sighed exasperatedly and shook his sleeve to move it away from his view of his watch. “Well, it is currently….” he squinted at the small watch on his wrist, “3:27 in the morning, so we aren't going anywhere soon, and I don't think the owners of this abandoned shack here will evict us, since, as the name implies, there are none.” 

He gestured largely to the interior of the small shack where the two beds lay on either side of the wooden floor, a scattering of metal shelves lining the cracked walls. A workbench sat in the corner, and dozens of burned books were strewn along the ground. 

“We’ve got all the time in the world, figuratively speaking.” He nodded at her and leaned forward. “So out with it.” 

Winnie cleared her throat again, shifting uncomfortably on her bed. She paused, looking around the dimly lit shack, wondering where exactly to begin her story. “Well, I… for starters, I wasn't always a courier working for the Mojave express.”

“No, I thought not.” Arcade interjected as though this were obvious. 

Winnie ignored his comment with an eye roll and continued. She sighed before saying, “I… the affiliations I've had in the past, I… I’m not proud of them. I did some bad things with some bad people.” 

Arcade looked at her with a neutral face. “Very specific,” he noted.

“We don't have to do this, you know. I could do without the fucking commentary.” Winnie spat, annoyed at the invasiveness of it all.

Arcade threw his arms up in mock guilt but dropped them back down after noticing her very genuine hurt. “Sorry.” He coughed awkwardly. “Continue.” 

She nodded curtly and looked away, staring straight ahead of her. “At one point, it got really bad, and I made a big mistake, and I… had to start over, I guess.” Winnie cringed as she thought back to the dream that haunted her.

It was quiet in the shack, save for Rex’s soft snoring through his snout, as Winnie quietly contemplated the idea of having to be a bit more specific. 

She exhaled shakily and began again, her voice much quieter and holding more weight to them. “I used to be half of a whole.” She managed the words with a soft crack in her voice. 

Arcade looked at her curiously, but before he could say something, Winnie turned her head back to look at him. Her head was tilted and her pained eyes were filled with tears, glimmering in the lamp light. “Do you know what that’s like?” She whispered urgently, tears spilling out the sides of her eyes.

Her companion didn't respond, his mouth agape slightly at the sudden change in tone of her voice.   
Going on what seemed like a tangent, Winnie continued to stare at Arcade, knowing full well he couldn't understand just what she was referring to. “When you're a twin, it's as though… half of your identity belongs to someone else. They're you, and you're them. But it's…good.” She breathed, crying silently as she reminisced. 

“My brother and I,” her lips curved into a soft smile, “we were the absolute worst.” Winnie couldn't help but break out in a small laugh. “We were partners in crime, wreaking havoc from Goodsprings to Red Rock. We stole, mostly, making a living off of sneaking around and scavenging from caravans when their owners were distracted.

“Mom died early on, so we learned to stick together. We were inseparable, just barely staying of trouble.” She paused with a shrug, wiping her tears and collecting her composure. “But it was basically over for us after some NCR folk caught us stealing, and we were thrown in the correctional facility real quick.” 

Arcade nodded cautiously, listening intently to her tale. “So that's what you're not proud of?” 

Winnie shook her head. “Not exactly. I mean, the stealing was bad, sure. But I still do my fair share of looting now. If I'm being honest, those were the good days. It went… downhill, from there.” She closed her eyes and exhaled.

“So there we were in the NCRCF, just Ray and I against the world, as it had always been. We were…” she counted quickly on her fingers, “around nineteen at the time. We made friends with the other criminals pretty quickly. They took us in like family. Soon enough, we were one with the Powder Gangers, outfits and all.” 

She fell quiet again, looking to Arcade in attempt to understand his reaction. He had none. So she continued.

“And so, just like all the others, we escaped during the big prison break a couple years later. But we didn’t really want to leave the new family we found, and so a whole group of us, about… thirty of us, maybe, all took off on our own. 

“We set up shop in an abandoned house north of Nipton. It was a pretty big house, two stories and all. We survived by raiding caravans and passersby, of which there were a surprising amount. Killed a lot, here and there. We lived like that for a long time.” 

She nodded solemnly, understanding the weight of her actions. When Arcade still didn't say anything, she spoke again, “and then there was Ray. On top of it all. He always had a way with people.” She chuckled, remembering him fondly.

“He was like their leader. His word was law, and they looked up to him for guidance. Where to get supplies, when to attack, the works. He was a king to them.” 

She shut her eyes, “and then there was me, his sister. And it… it was like I was left in the dust. I felt left behind. Suddenly, I was envious, I wanted to be where he was, I… wanted him gone.” She paused, as though the thought was hard to bear.  
“And it showed. We fought often. I would try to sabotage his attempts at leadership, and he would criticize me for my lack of effort. I was the weak link, the lesser twin. We just, like... butted heads, constantly. And then, I just… couldn't take it anymore, I guess.” 

Winnie quickly caught herself, feeling her voice begin to give out again, “I’m not… I'm not going to defend what I did. The reasons behind it, they… they don't matter. It wasn't right, and I know that.” 

She felt her hands curl into fists. “But, in a moment of… anger, and jealousy, and unjustified rage, I…” she coughed as though to mask the tears, but it only came out as a sob.

Her breath got caught, and she was crying again. She buried her face in her hands, pushing up her face and grabbing the short hair on her head. It took a couple seconds until she could speak again, her breathing slowing just enough to talk.

“I shot him,” her voice was a mere whisper, a hiss. “I killed my own brother. A-and the second it was done, I realized I shouldn't have, I know I shouldn't have, I…” Winnie spoke quickly and frantically, her voice interrupted by rapid intakes of breath. 

She grit her teeth and shrieked with a closed mouth, taking her fist and hitting the mattress again, her hands taken over by her rage. Rex jumped up in worry, crawling over to her with a small concerned whimper. 

Winnie inhaled deeply and shakily, composing herself. She didn't look at Arcade, and instead stared off at nothing. “I don't even know why. I just… did.”

It was silent again, save for the creaking of the wood and the wind outside in the wasteland. Rex lay back down, his ears raised just in case. 

Winnie suddenly shook her head, realizing the effect this may have on her companion in the room who had yet to say anything. “This was a mistake, I never should have said anything, I’m-”

“The thing about regret,” Arcade finally spoke up, his face having seemingly not changed throughout the duration of her story, “is that it’ll eat you alive if you can't let go.”   
Winnie’s posture straightened a bit, almost surprised. “What?”

He turned to face her, his words sincere. “This was something that you regret doing, but it's done. You can't change what happened. You can wish with all your might to go back and rewrite history, but it won't happen.”

Arcade nodded at her with his eyebrows, as a way to question her understanding. “So, your only two options here are to let the guilt swallow you whole, or,” he exhaled softly. “Or you can forgive yourself. And let go.” 

Winnie stared at him, almost mesmerized by his words, and she nodded as though in a trance. She looked away, back down at the bed beneath her. “I just…” She spoke in a low whisper, “I only hope he knows I’m sorry.” 

He gave her a sympathetic half-smile. “I’m sure he does. I’m going back to sleep, and you should too. You don’t need to punish yourself for what you’ve done by dreaming of it every night. I promise, you’ll be alright if you move on. Okay?” He looked at her from under his brow, his glasses sliding down his nose. 

Winnie nodded with a soft smile. He laid down and turned his back to her, stuffing his pistol under his pillow. She lowered herself to her bed shakily, making sure to leave room for the cyberdog on the end of the mattress. 

She took a deep breath, picturing her brother, but a version of him that was alive and well. She turned her head to the bed across from her. “Hey, Arcade?”

Arcade didn’t turn back around, but murmured a small, “Mmm?” 

“Thank you.” Winnie whispered sincerely. 

“Go to sleep.” 

“Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as basically an excuse to solidify a backstory for my gal Winnie do with it what you will. Also arcade is amazing and I love him.


End file.
